Abstract: “Premium support” proposals to reform the Medicare program have a long and bipartisan history. The basic idea, which would provide beneficiaries with a financial contribution to purchase Medicare coverage, has been developed and refined over more than 15 years. While versions differ in… Read more
Abstract: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued final regulations for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The outcome is disappointing: There are marginal changes only; the final regulations retain the same flawed structure set out in… Read more
In this week's Heritage in Focus podcast, Dr. Bob Moffit discusses his new paper, "Obamacare Ends Medicare As We Know It." David Weinberger hosts. To get regular updates on Heritage in Focus podcasts, visit our RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes. To listen to more Heritage… Read more
The much-awaited release of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute’s (PCORI) priorities and research agenda lacks specifics and fails to answer concerns that its research findings will ultimately be used to limit treatment options. The PCORI was created in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)… Read more
Abstract: In March 2012, two years after the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the federal health care legislation. One issue the court will take up is whether the PPACA’s Medicaid expansion constitutes… Read more
Abstract: In 2003, the Medicare Modernization Act created the Medicare Advantage program, which allowed seniors to choose coverage from private health plans. Both recent research published in The American Journal of Managed Care … Read more
Testimony before Committee On Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health United States House of Representatives … Read more
From The Heritage Foundation, I'm Ernest Istook. … Read more
From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Ernest Istook. … Read more
Abstract: Following a record year of rulemaking, the Obama Administration is continuing to unleash more costly red tape. In the first six months of the 2011 fiscal year, 15 major regulations were issued, with annual costs exceeding $5.8… Read more
Think tank analysts usually brim with pride when the president of the United States goes around claiming that his policies are based on their work. But when President Obama tries to sell his health-care law as a moderate approach that borrows ideas developed by the Heritage Foundation, we get incensed.… Read more
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)[1] imposes numerous tax hikes that transfer more than $500 billion over 10 years—and more in the future—from hardworking American families and businesses to Congress for spending on new entitlements and subsidies. In addition, higher tax rates on working and investing… Read more
No class of American professionals will be more negatively impacted by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act than physicians. Third-party payment arrangements already compromise the independence and integrity of the medical profession; Obamacare will reinforce the worst of these features.… Read more
The Administration’s health policy agenda—embodied in Congress’s two giant health care bills (H.R.3590 and H.R.4872)—is now law. The justification for the new law’s burdensome taxes, unprecedented mandates, deficit spending, and stifling government regulation is that millions of Americans will now be insured. But the real impact Obamacare will have… Read more
According to surveys, no group of Americans is more skeptical of Obamacare than senior citizens[1]—and with good reason. While bits and pieces of the massive law are designed to appeal to seniors—more taxpayer subsidies for the Medicare drug benefit, for example—much of the financing… Read more
Families have good reason to be concerned about how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010[1] will affect them. While the law will deliver a health insurance entitlement to millions of individuals and families, many of its provisions weaken family choice of coverage, undermine… Read more
Abstract: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act substantially alters Medicare Advantage and, as a consequence, reduces the access of senior citizens and the disabled to quality health care by restricting and worsening the health care plan options available to them. Lower-income beneficiaries, Hispanics,… Read more
House appropriators deserve two cheers for their recently released bill funding the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies for fiscal year (FY) 2012.[1] Disappointingly, the legislation only slightly reduces federal spending. Nevertheless, its policy riders take important steps in the right direction.… Read more
President Obama’s health care law requires employers to offer health benefits to full-time employees. This employer mandate will price many unskilled workers out of full-time employment. After paying the new health premiums, the minimum wage, payroll taxes, and unemployment insurance taxes, hiring a full-time worker will… Read more
Abstract: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are a showpiece of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010. PPACA, known as Obamacare, creates a program in Medicare to stimulate the development of ACOs by making Shared Savings Payments to ACOs if they improve… Read more
The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) new preventive services guidelines are a disaster for freedom of conscience and a fresh illustration of the political hammerlock “reproductive rights” organizations have on the Obama Administration. Forcing private insurance plans to pay for morally controversial offerings such… Read more
Abstract: Imagine that the 2010 health reform legislation goes into effect as planned. If the skeptics are correct and it fails to control long-term federal health spending, what could a future Congress do to modify it? There are three approaches. Congress could (1) clamp… Read more
If it weren’t for Obamacare, we wouldn’t have this problem. By “this problem,” we mean of course the Obamacare...… Read more
Obamacare increases unaffordable government spending, which ultimately comes out of taxpayers’ pockets. Here, we...… Read more
Last week, the IRS released its proposed plan to implement the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices designed to...… Read more
With tens of millions of Americans watching, Barack Obama stood at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20,...… Read more
The commotion surrounding President Obama’s press conference Friday on the latest Obamacare mandate caused plenty of...… Read more
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced legislation to protect religious organizations from Obamacare’s overreach last...… Read more
Later today, The Heritage Foundation (with five other organizations and former Senator George LeMieux) will file an...… Read more
"Simply unacceptable." That's the near-unanimous response to President Obama's supposed "accommodation" offered to...… Read more
On Friday, President Obama announced an “accommodation” to the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate:...… Read more
The chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee blasted the president's self-styled "accommodation" of religious...… Read more
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Policy Analyst